Monday, November 22, 2004

Enron

The Enron scandal has faded from the front pages, but Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind have written a terrific book titled "The Smartest Guys in the Room: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron." It's an excellent piece of investigative journalism, and if you're at all interested in the sorry saga, I highly recommend the book. It meticulously chronicles what happened and does a tremendous job of explaining the fraudulent accounting that was systematically used at Enron for years.

And if you want the short version--the top executives at Enron were all scumbags. There are no accounting rules interpretations that can excuse what they did. It will take a while, but almost all of those Enron guys will be going to prison.